Tubular inserters (introducer sheaths and needles) are available that can be used to puncture the skin and access body cavities (i.e., veins, arteries, the stomach, etc.). Catheters, electrodes or other devices can be threaded through the lumens of these devices into their required position.
Also commercially available are tubular inserters which can be removed from about the instrumentalities by splitting them. They can then be taken off of the instrumentalities through the split. Such tubular inserters are very useful but suffer from certain drawbacks. After insertion, they become an open pathway into and out of the body. Large amounts of blood loss and possible ingress of air or bacterial contamination are all possibilities. Physicians quite often cover the ends of these tubular inserters with their fingers to minimize these possibilities. This makes the feeding of the catheter or an electrode through the tubular inserters more difficult.
It would be desirable to provide a tubular inserter which did not suffer from the problems of blood escaping up its lumen and would minimize the risk of air or bacterial ingress when an instrumentality was inserted through it with the tubular inserter being of the splittable variety so that it could be removed after insertion of the instrumentality. The present invention addresses just this problem.